Optimal Signal Design for Detection of Gaussian Point Targets in Stationary Gaussian Clutter/Reverberation

In this paper, we address the design of an optimal transmit signal and its corresponding optimal detector for a radar or active sonar system. The focus is on the temporal aspects of the waveform with the spatial aspects to be described in a future paper. The assumptions involved in modeling the clutter/reverberation return are crucial to the development of the optimal detector and its consequent optimal signal design. In particular, the target is assumed to be a Gaussian point target and the clutter/reverberation a stationary Gaussian random process. In practice, therefore, the modeling will need to be assessed and possibly extended, and additionally a means of measuring the "in-situ" clutter/reverberation spectrum will be required. The advantages of our approach are that a simple analytical result is obtained which is guaranteed to be optimal, and also the extension to spatial-temporal signal design is immediate using ideas of frequency-wavenum her representations. Some examples are given to illustrate the signal design procedure as well as the calculation of the increase in processing gain. Finally, the results are shown to be an extension of the usual procedure which places the signal energy in the noise band having minimum power.